Happy New Year everyone!

Thanks to my daughter Lydia for redrawing my psoriasis origin story comic. She surprised me on Christmas with it. I used the comic to speak to teens at the most recent National Psoriasis Foundation (NPF) volunteer conference in the summer of 2017.

My psoriasis was first triggered by that unwashed sleeping back when I was an elemetary school student:

Here’s the description I wrote for the comic in the original Everyday Health The Itch to Beat Psoriasis blog titled My Psoriasis Origin Story and the Power of Volunteering:

“The comic strip opens with my first experience with psoriasis, at the age of 8. The trigger appeared to be chemicals in a new sleeping bag that I slept in. The next panel of the comic shows me with a strep throat infection, lying on the ground feeling hot from the fever. My whole body broke out in guttate psoriasis after that infection.”

“The next couple of panels show my diagnosis being confirmed at the University of California in San Francisco. I started phototherapy as a fourth grader around that time. My teacher told the class why I would be late three days a week, hoping to educate others and bring awareness to my condition. What she didn’t realize is how that inadvertently contributed to the teasing and bullying that I experienced.”

Perhaps I can commission her to make a comic book of my psoriasis journey. That will be my request for Christmas 2019 🙂